


Healing

by SilverinGray



Category: Will & Grace
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-02-11 22:24:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12945300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverinGray/pseuds/SilverinGray
Summary: Will is attacked one night, and goes to Leo because he's the only doctor he trusts. Set before the new season, but still ignores the old finale.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure where this is going, but I enjoyed writing it. There's not much in this fandom, and not really anything like this, so I'm not sure if anybody will enjoy it but that's okay. I'm writing it as I go, so be patient please. No romances here, at least no new one, this is just Will and his friends helping him. For anyone confused, this is before the new season so Grace and Leo are together still, but Vince and Will have broken up. There are no children, and everybody is obviously still friends. 
> 
> No graphic descriptions of rape or sex - if that changes I'll warn you. All aftermath.
> 
> I've never posted anything before, so sorry for any formatting issues or anything like that.

“This is Dr. Markus.” I answered the phone without looking at the caller ID, not taking my eyes off the document open on the computer in front of me.

  
“Le-Leo?” Someone asked, and it took me a moment to place that it was Will, the hesitant, soft voice not usually the one I would associate with him.

  
“Will? What’s up?” I sat up, a little concerned. Will hardly ever called me, usually texting me if he had something to tell me, and when he did call, it had never been while I was at work unless there was something wrong, and he usually started phone conversations without any greeting, just launching into whatever he had to say.

  
“I… I was…mugged. And I think I may need medical attention.” He still sounded hesitant, the last sentence more or a question than a statement. I could hear him breathing, heavy and fast, and I slipped into the doctor voice I used with my patients without thinking.

  
“Okay. Okay, do you need to go to a hospital?”

“No! No, I mean, it’s not that bad I just… could you help me? Please Leo, I would rather you just help me I don’t think it’s that bad.”

  
“Okay. Okay, I can probably do that Will, but I’m a surgeon. I don’t really do stuff like this.” I warned him, and he whispered an okay to me. “Okay, well. You can come to my office, you know where that is right? We have an exam room, some supplies. When did this happen?”

  
“Last night.” Will told me, and I frowned, because I had imagined that this had just happened with how agitated he sounded, and I couldn’t think of why he wouldn’t have called Grace or gone to the hospital right after it happened. And he definitely hadn’t told Grace, because she would have told me right after, either trying to get me to help or just hysterical and worried about her friend, and she always freaked out about close brushes with crime, like she hadn’t lived in New York for 20 years and knew what to expect. Regardless, I told Will to come right over, giving him the address even though he said he knew where to go, and went to go get the exam room prepared for him once we hung up. I didn’t use the room very often, it was mostly used for pre-op, which my nurses did for me unless there was a problem, so by the time I had finally found the supplies I thought we might need (gauze, medical tape, plain band aids, hydrogen peroxide, cotton balls and the like), my assistant was knocking on the door jamb with her eyebrows furrowed in a confused expression.

  
“There’s a man here, Will Truman, and he says he’s here for you.” She told me, glancing at the pile of supplies I had laid out. “He looks a little beat up, and he doesn’t have an appointment but he says he’s a friend”.

  
“Yeah Julie, he called to let me know he was coming. Sorry, I should’ve let you know. Could you walk him back?” I asked and she looked confused but agreed, walking back towards our waiting room. I hurriedly pulled new paper down onto the exam table and then waited for Will.

  
He walked in slowly, limping a little, and eyes trained at the ground instead of at me. He wasn’t dressed like himself, wearing an oversized sweatshirt and dark sweatpants. I could see the dark shadowing of bruising along his jaw line even though it looked like he had tried to cover it up a bit with some makeup and also peeking out of the neck of his sweatshirt, those bruises a bright red and purple before they disappeared from view. He glanced up at me, forcing a strained smile.

“Hey.” He said, a little hoarsely, dropping his eyes back down when I frowned at him.

  
“Hey Will. If you wanna sit down here, I’m gonna grab you some lotion to wipe off the make up on your jaw. You are wearing makeup?” He blushed a little, nodded, so I went and grabbed some lotion from my desk and hurried back down the hall. He was perched on the edge of the exam table, playing with the strings on his pants when I walked in. “Here we go,” I said, handing him the small bottle and some tissues, and he took it wordlessly before rubbing harshly at his jaw. The makeup was hiding bruises much the same at the ones on his neck, angry red and purpling.

“Alright, can you tell me what’s wrong?” I asked and he stopped scrubbing at his face, dropping his hand down into his lap and clutching the tissues in his hand.

  
“Um. Mostly my ribs I guess, on the left side. Th-the bruises look pretty bad, and it hurts to breathe deep. And I have a lot of scrapes I can’t reach, and my hand.” He nodded at his left hand, tucked into his jacket pocket.

  
“Your hand? Okay, can I see?” I reached out, and he hesitated before laying his own cold hand into mine. I could immediately tell one of his fingers was broken, swollen and mostly likely out of place, and he winced when I gently felt along the length. His palm was also scraped up like from a fall, swollen a little along the heel of his hand. “Okay, well this is broken. It doesn’t look too bad, I can probably set it here, but I’m going to need to x-ray it, alright? We have one in the back room.” I said, and he nodded, chewing on his lower lip which looked swollen and sore, like he had been biting at it for a while. This wasn’t something I had ever noticed him doing, but I hadn’t seen Will in very many vulnerable moments before. “Okay, I want to look at everything else first though. Can you take off your shirt?” I turned around and rummaged through the pile of gauze, and snapping on a pair of gloves, giving him a second of privacy.

  
“I’m done.” He called out after the sound of a brief struggle with his shirt, and I turned around and had to work at keeping my face neutral. He was covered in bruises, all along his left side stained a dark purple, and random other lighter bruises dotting the rest of his torso and chest. He had scrapes all over, mostly superficial ones, but some that looked deeper and raw. I spotted what looked like a bite mark along his collarbone, and the bruises on his neck looked like someone had choked him, more obviously from a hand now that I could see the whole thing.

  
“Will…” I breathed out, and he looked away, body held very stiff and still. I reached out to touch his shoulder and he flinched. “You said you were mugged.”

  
“I was.” He said back, voice tight, and I realized he was shaking, his whole body trembling minutely beneath my hand.

  
“This wasn’t from being mugged, Will. Someone hurt you.” He clenched his jaw tightly at my words, breathing harshly in through his nose and refusing to look at me. “Please Will. If I know, I can know how to help you.”

  
“Some-someone attacked me. Went to a bar and af-after someone attacked me.” He stuttered out, words falling out in a rush as he stumbled through it. He still wasn’t looking at me, and I took his uninjured hand from where it was laying on the paper covered table, his left curled protectively near his waist.

  
“Someone raped you.” I said, a statement rather than a question. He clenched his fingers around mine before giving a short, fast nod. I sucked in a slow breath even though I had known that’s what he was going to confirm, squeezing his hand back. “Okay. Okay, let’s get you fixed up and then we can talk about it. I’m going to check on your ribs, and clean up your scrapes okay? If your ribs are broken there’s not too much we can do besides rest and get you some pain medication, but I need to make sure that if they are, they’re not displaced. That could be dangerous. Is that alright?” I asked him, and he nodded again, letting me pull my hand from his grasp.  
I tried to forget I was working on Will as I ran my hands along his side, pressing down softly and listening to the soft gasps he let out when he couldn’t bite them back anymore. Only one felt cracked, thank god, and it still was in the natural position a rib was supposed to be. None of the rest were broken, just badly bruised, and I checked the other side cursorily just to make sure. When I was done I asked his to turn around, glad he wasn’t facing me because I couldn’t help the grimace at the sight of the deeper abrasions here, and the bruising the wrapped along his side. The bruises weren’t as bad, nothing seeming broken or like anything something antiseptic and bandages wouldn’t fix, but it looked very ugly and painful. I cleaned them in silence, carefully checking to make sure there wasn’t any debris in them while Will seemed to zone out, barely reacting. Relatively soon I was done, taping the last of the bandages over the bite mark on his chest. That made my chest constrict the most, seeing the purple teeth marks over his heart, and he reached up to touch my hand.

  
“I’m sorry.” He whispered.

  
“It’s not your fault. Nothing to be sorry about, okay?” I turned my hand around to grab his, remembering how often he held hands with Grace and Jack, casually reaching out to touch their hands when they talked, and he smiled a little, though the rest of his face didn’t follow suit. “You were limping, can you tell me why?” I was dreading finish with his torso, not knowing what else I would find, but he just gestured towards his knee.  
“I hurt my knee? But I don’t think it’s twisted or anything.”

  
“Okay, can you take your pants off?” I asked, and he froze. “Or just, can your pants pull up that much? And here, you can put on your shirt.” I handed it to him and he struggled putting it on until I helped him pull it over his head. I had to help him pull up his pants leg too, working at it one handed proving too difficult for him to do it quickly.

  
His knee was swollen, the same abrasions that covered his back here, but Will was right, that seemed to be the only major damage. He could bend it, though painfully, and when the swelling went down that wouldn’t hurt as bad. There was no debris here either, and I worked on bandaging it with quick, light hands. “Did you clean these?” I asked, and Will nodded.

  
“Yeah…yeah I scrubbed in the shower.” He told me, and I knew that meant he wouldn’t want to press charges. He was a lawyer, even if a corporate lawyer, and he knew that showering made a rape kit pretty much useless. Though it was a relief that he wouldn’t have to go through that, I didn’t know if it was good or bad that he didn’t want to report it. I didn’t say anything though, just nodded and gave him a small smile.

  
“Your other knee?”

  
“No, it’s okay. Some scrapes, but just barely.”

  
“Okay. What about…Will, I’m sorry to ask this, but do I need to treat anything else? Are you bleeding?” I tried to phrase it gently, but he still tensed up, immediately looking away.

  
“I was. After. But not now?” He whispered, so that I had to lean forward to hear him. “I… there’s a bite mark. On my thigh. You might need to look at.” His voice broke at that, and he started breathing faster, pressing his good hand against his eyes.

  
“Hey, you’re okay. I can look at that. Just a couple questions okay, but just breathe first.” I held his hand again as he calmed, rubbing my thumb across his knuckles. I thanked doctors without borders all of a sudden, because without those experiences I would be woefully unprepared. I had seen rape victims more than a few times with them, though all women, but my career in the states would never have given me enough experience for this. Slowly, Will calmed, matching my slow even breaths. “You said you weren’t bleeding. Do you have any abrasions there?” I asked, and Will gave a quick no shake, staring at my feet. “Did he use anything, or just his penis?”

  
“Just-just his penis” He mumbled, and I was relieved. Being raped with an object almost always meant sores inside someone, and I was willing to take Will at his word that he didn’t need any medical attention there if that hadn’t happened. A rectal examination would be traumatizing, and I didn’t want to put him through that if we didn’t need to.

  
“Okay, that’s good. I just need you to tell me if you start bleeding again, or you have any signs of infection at all, okay?” I asked, and he nodded. “Did he use a condom?” Another quick shake, and bright spots of color appeared on Will’s face. “We can draw some blood then, and there’s a medication I can prescribe in case you exposed to HIV, so you are way less likely to contract it. Do you want me to?”

  
“Please.” He said quietly.

  
“Then I will. You need to take it within 72 hours, so I’ll get it for you, if that’s okay? You’ll take it, and we’ll retest you in a couple weeks.” I didn’t wait for him to respond, changing my gloves. “You said you had a bite mark. Can you slide your pants down for me? As long as I can see it, you can keep your underwear on and everything.” Will hesitated, but slid his pants down to the bottom of his thighs, hands shaking visibly where he had them curled around the waistband. There was a bite mark on his right thigh, right under where his boxers stopped, and it was swollen and red. I could see where Will had scrubbed at it, skin rubbed raw, and I winced before I could stop myself. “Alright, I’ll just clean this, and then we’ll go get your hand x-rayed and then draw some blood.” I waited until Will nodded, and working at cleaning the inflamed wound. He flinched at the first touch, gasping, and I stopped.

  
“It’s-it’s okay. You can keep going.” He whispered. It didn’t take very long, and soon I was taping on a thick white gauze square.

  
“You’re going to want to change this tomorrow. I can come by and do the ones on your back, and I want to look at this too, it’s pretty deep.” I finally looked up at him, took in the tight lines around his eyes, but the worst was over and he seemed calm. I was worried that would change when we were done though, that he was just working on adrenaline to get through this.

  
The x-ray of his hand was relatively painless, Will quiet but pliant, following my directions without any protests. I drew his blood as we waited for the x-rays, the bright red of his blood not all the much different of a color than the scrapes I knew covered his back and hands. He was shaking a little again, minute trembles running through his fingers.

  
“Have you eaten?”

  
“Not today.” He answered, and I rummaged through the cabinets after throwing away the used needle, finding a stash of power bars and cookies I knew that the nurses kept, along with some juices in the fridge.

  
“Here.” I handed him one of each, and he pulled a face, scrunching up his nose. I laughed a little, glad to see the first signs of his personality I had seen the whole time. “I know it’s not up to your usual standards, but you need the sugar. I don’t want you fainting on me.” I took the juice back before he could try to open it himself, cracking the seal and handing it back, watched him take a hesitant sip. “I’m gonna go check on your x-rays and get you a splint for your finger, sit here okay? If you need me, I’ll just be at the end of the hall so you can come find me or just yell.” I told him, and he gave me a small smile in response.

  
I rushed back, not wanting to leave Will alone for very long, giving the x-rays a quick study. His finger was obviously broken, off center from the rest of them, but it was one clean break. I could set it easily, and after a few weeks in a splint it would be healed back to what it was before. That was a relief, because I couldn’t see Will reacting very well to the news that he would need to have surgery. I was back in the exam room faster than I had ever gotten ready to set someone’s break before.

  
Will had drank half the juice and taken a few bites of the cookie, leaving the power bar unopened on the counter. He had gotten up from the table, looking out the small window in the corner of the room. He jumped when I knocked on the open door, wincing when that must have jarred his ribs.

  
“Is it good news?” he joked weakly, nodding at the soft splint I was holding along with the x-rays.

  
“Yeah. Clean break, I can set it and we’ll be done. I do want you to take this though, it’ll still hurt, but it’ll kick in faster than taking it after I set it. Or, you can take the pain meds and we can wait until it’s not so bad.” I held out the paper cup with two white pills, pain medication that wouldn’t take all his pain away but would hopefully take away the worst bite of it. He took it, dry swallowing them down before I could offer him some water.  
“Just do it now, please. I don’t want to wait.” He said, sitting back down on the exam table.

  
“Alright. I’m going to do it on three, okay? It’ll hurt, but once I’m done it will hopefully feel a bit better than it does not. Then we can splint it and get out of here.” I told him, and he nodded, closing his eyes when I took his hand. I counted to three and snapped it back into place, and he let out a sound between a gasp and a yelp, automatically cradling it to his chest as soon as I let go. “Wait, wait, don’t move. Let me get the splint on first.” I didn’t want him jarring it out of place before I could get the splint on, and he nodded shakily, letting me manipulate the foam and metal onto his finger with some obvious effort. Finally, I was done. He pulled it right back up to his chest, holding it with his uninjured hand.

  
“Can I go home now?” He whispered.

  
“Yeah, yeah, let me get my coat and I’ll drive you home.”

  
“You don’t have to. I took a cab, I can get one back.”

  
“Look Will, I want to drive you home. Besides the fact I’m a little afraid if I let you go alone you’re going to pass out or something, I also want to make sure you’re okay. It’s not a big deal, I don’t have any appointments today, I can take the day off. So just give me a minute to grab my coat and some papers, and we can leave.” I didn’t ask, but he nodded anyway, trailing me out the door as I grabbed my stuff. I told my assistant I was leaving for the day, ignoring her questioning look as Will lingered behind me, head down.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leo drives Will home, and they talk
> 
> This is a bit shorter than the first chapter, I think.

The ride back to Will’s place was silent. I couldn’t think of anything to say, and playing the radio felt wrong, so we rode back with only the sound of other traffic and the road under my wheels. Will just stared out the window, feet pulled up into the seat so he was curled against the car door, looking much younger and older than he usually did at the same time. He tried to get me to just drop him off, but he agreed to let me come up without much of a fight, just sighing and letting me follow him to the elevator. The ride up was just as quiet, Will not speaking until the apartment door was safely closed behind him.

“I…I’m going to go change, I think. There’s wine in the fridge, and I think some leftover beer, if you want.” He told me, immediately walking to his room. He was still limping, but was obviously more comfortable at home than in my office, head held higher than the entire time we had been together. I went to the fridge and rummaged around, pulling out one of the sparkling water that Will liked and frowning at the contents of the shelves. He had plenty of food, but all of it was stuff that needed to be cooked. I wanted him to eat something before I left though, something more than a couple mouthfuls of cookie, and finally settled on a tub of hummus and some crackers. 

“I guess I can’t drink with the pain meds you gave me?” I jumped at the sudden sound of his question, turning to see him looking mournfully at the bottles of wine on his counter. I snorted, setting the water in front of them after cracking open the lid.

“Nope. I would like you to drink this though, and eat something. I grabbed some hummus for you, but whatever’s good. Then I can go pick up your meds.” I said, and watched as he did as I wanted, sitting down at the kitchen table. He had changed into a different pair of sweats and an old college t-shirt, and he glanced up at me when I sat down across from him. 

“You don’t have to stay. I’m fine.” 

“Okay. I do think that we need to talk.” Will didn’t say anything to that, but his hands stilled from where he was eating. “We need to talk about what we're going to tell Grace.”

“Nothing! We can just…I can tell her I was mugged.” He burst out, and his eyes were suddenly panicked. “I don’t. I can’t tell her. We can just tell her I was mugged and I’m fine and I don’t want to upset her Leo, I can’t tell her.” His voice broke and all of a sudden he was hyperventilating, more upset than he had been all throughout the medical exam. He pushed back his chair with a screech, good hand going up to grip at his short hair.

“Hey, hey it’s okay.” I stood up too, hands help palm up to try and soothe him.

“No! No I can’t tell her I don’t want her to know. Please.” He was pacing, and I took a step closer, catching his shoulders to still him. He reared back at the touch but then burst into tears, and I found myself with my arms full of Will, sagging against my chest like his legs just couldn’t support his weight anymore. I had never seen Will cry before, had never seen him upset in a way that didn’t involve anger, and felt uncertainty overwhelm me for a moment. I managed to lower us to the couch, making soothing, nonsense noises as I stroked his hair. His sobs sounded miserable and choked, like he was trying to stop them from coming but simply couldn’t, and his shoulders were shuddering. I kept my voice low, soothing, as I spoke to him.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, Will, everything is going to be okay. We’ll get through this. Just take deep breathes, I promise you’re okay.” I kept carding through his hair with gentle fingers, and slowly he stopped crying. He left his head pressed against my chest and I let him, feeling the wetness from his tears seeping through. 

“I’m sorry.” He mumbled.

“It’s okay. No reason.” I tried not to move, so that he wouldn’t think I was uncomfortable with comforting him this way, but after a few long moments he sat up a little. He was still sitting close though, shoulder pressed up against mine, and he wiped at his face with the heel of his hand. He was embarrassed I knew, and I gave him a reassuring smile when he finally looked me in the face.

“I guess…I guess I can’t not tell her?”

“She would know something. I’m not going to tell her if you don’t want me to, but I think that you should. That it would help. And you know how she gets, when she’s worried.” I said, and Will snorted in agreement. He takes a deep breath before wincing, probably at the pull of his ribs, and he looks very vulnerable. That isn’t something I had ever thought Will before, vulnerable, but with fresh tear tracks smeared across his face, face bruised and wearing a thin t-shirt, he looked very young and very small.

“Yeah. She would push until I told her.” 

“She’s like that.”

“Can you tell her?” He asked, all in a rush like if he didn’t get it out he wouldn’t ask, and I raised my eyebrows in surprise. 

“Tell her what happened? I…I can, yeah. If that’s what you want. Whatever you think is best I can probably do.” He relaxed just the tiniest bit at my words, evidently relieved. 

“Could you tell her while I’m not there? I don’t think I can deal with…with her being so upset about it. She’ll get really upset and loud and I can’t do that right now. Just you could tell her, and calm her down. Reassure her I’m alright.” He said, and though I couldn’t imagine Grace being placated that Will was okay after news like that before actually seeing him, I could definitely see the benefit in telling her in a place she can be upset and process before actually talking to Will. She had a tendency of making things about her automatically, and reacted dramatically to most bad news. She didn’t try to be so self-centered, and did really care about her friends and family, but letting her get that first automatic reaction out without making Will deal with the emotional fall out seemed kind. 

“Yeah, yeah I can do that. If that’s what you want. I can tell her tonight, but you know she’ll want to see you right after. But I can calm her down, and then bring her. And bring your meds, too. If that’s what you want to do, I can definitely do that.”

“Yes. Thank you.” He sighed again, and there was a beat of silence. “God, what am I going to tell Jack and Karen?” 

“Let’s not worry about that now. We’ll figure it out after Grace.” I put my hand on his arm and he flinched but then relaxed, slumping into the back of the couch. Under his eyes were dark and bruised and I felt a pang of sorrow. “Here. I’m going to go get everything for you, and I’ll text Grace to meet me at home. Could you take a nap maybe? I’ll call you before we come over, and I’ll bring dinner. Do you think Jack will come over today?” He answered in the negative, mumbling something about Jack working, but I wasn’t listening as well as I tried to mentally prepare what I would tell Grace. I did get him to promise that he would try and sleep and eat something, but that didn’t help the lump of worry and anxiety in my chest as I left him alone. I knew that Will was the strongest of their little group though, usually the one that held all the others up, and I hoped they would be able to do that for him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leo tells Grace, and Will and Grace talk.

I was more worried about telling Grace about what had happened to Will than I had been proposing to her the first time. That had been spontaneous, fun, and this was just filling me with roiling hot anxiety in my gut and a lump in my throat. I was worried about Will himself, unable to stop picturing him as I closed his apartment door, slumped down on his couch with his eyes closed, and worried about how Grace would react. Will was her best friend, and while nothing really bad had ever happened to him while they were friends that I knew of, I had seen her react badly to much more minor things. Will being attacked, being raped, that was so much worse, I was worried for her too.

“Leo, honey?” Grace called as she opened the front door, struggling to get her key out of the lock and push open the door with her arms full of bags. I had asked her to meet me at home, but hadn’t said why. I went to help her, collecting her armful of things and putting them on the kitchen table. When she looked at me she was smiling brightly, face flushed from the cold air outside, but her face creased in concern at what must have been the look on my face. “What’s wrong?”

“Grace, I need to tell you something. Could you sit down?” I ushered her onto the couch and she went willingly but questioningly, reaching out to catch my arm and pull me down next to her. “Now, everybody is okay. Alright?”

“Everybody who? What happened?” She asked, voice edging into hysteria.

“Will called me this morning, to ask me to help him because he was attacked. He-“

“Attacked!? Where? When? Is he okay, where is he? We need to go-“

“Grace, sweetie, stop, stop. Let me talk first okay?” I waited until she nodded, looked into her worried hazel eyes. She was panicking a little still, face very openly worried and scared, and I had to swallow hard to be able to talk clearly again. “He’s okay, he’s at home. He has a broken finger and some bruises. I think it mostly looks worse than it is. But Grace, Will was…Will was raped.”

“What? No he wasn’t, I just talked to him yesterday, he was fine.” She denied, leaning away from me with incredulity written clearly across her face.

“Grace-“

“No, he’s fine. I just saw him yesterday, we got coffee, he was fine.” She said again, voice rising in pitch.

“Grace, I saw his injuries. I’m sorry. But he was.” I told her, and I could see the instant when the news actually sank in.

“Will was. Will was raped.” She repeated, voice going flat. Her face had frozen too, almost no expression as she processed what I had said. I could see her throat work as she swallowed thickly, and then her eyes were filling with tears.

“Yes. I’m sorry Grace. He wanted me to tell you, he didn’t think he could.” I held her hand, stroking along her knuckles in much the same way I had done her best friend just hours before. Her hand was much softer, smoother, but I could feel her fingers trembling the same as his had.

“He went to you?” She asked, voice small and shaky and upset.

“He told me he was mugged and asked if I could help. But I could tell it wasn’t just that.” I reached out to her and she took the move as I had wanted and burrowed into my side, small body fitting perfectly against me. We had sat like this hundreds of times over the years, and many times as she cried, but this time felt worse, felt heavier and I couldn’t stop the tears from prickling at the backs of my eyes either. She was trying not to cry, trying to ask questions, but I just held her until she was crying outright, burying her head into my shoulder and getting my shirt wet. “We can go over there, when you feel a bit better. He wanted to see you, but he told me that if you were upset, he would be too.”

“And he didn’t want me to see him upset.” Grace finished. That wasn’t exactly what he had said, but I knew it was probably part of it anyway, so I just nodded. Her eyes were red rimmed and bright still, and tears were clinging to her eyelashes. She was still cuddled into me, the two of us barely taking up a whole cushion on the couch, and I brought her hand up to my chest and held it there. She still looked upset, but calmer, and I had been mostly worried about her asking too many questions that Will wouldn’t want to answer, and she had already gotten that out of her system. I reached for my phone to tell Will we would be headed over soon. “Who are you texting?”

“Will. I told him we would bring him dinner, too. Do you want anything? Or is there anything he really likes that he would for sure eat?” I thumbed through mine and Will’s previous texts, the mostly short factual based stuff and the occasional picture of Grace or an article that one of us thought the other might be interested in.

That was one thing that Will and I had in common. Will was smart, and while Grace was too, it wasn’t in the same read and learn new things and want to discuss it smart. She was much more emotionally based, always knowing what was happening. So sometimes we had those discussion together, especially when Grace had left us alone together at one event or another.

“Yeah, there’s a Thai restaurant on the way that he likes, we could go there.” She paused, biting at her lower lip. “I’m not really hungry myself.”

“Me neither. But we should eat, and I want to make sure he does.” Grace nodded at that, wiping at her face and seeming to make a decision as she stood.

“Okay. I am going to wash my face and change, and then we can go grab the food and go over there. And no crying from me.” She declared, giving me a weak half smile and turning to march into our bedroom. She looked determined, but I could see that she was still upset, still reeling from the news, even if she was pushing it away to be strong for Will. The worst of my fears had been avoided, Grace reacting much better than I had expected, and I was filled with a sudden wave of relief and exhaustion. I was so, so glad she was okay, but still anxious and worried about Will, and I dropped my head onto the table with a sigh while waiting for her.

 

 

The ride to Will’s felt like Deja vu. Grace was quiet, responding if I said something but not making any move to keep the conversation going. She had the bags of food in her lap, holding her phone and frowning at it like it had done something to her.

“Do you think I should text him?” She asked suddenly, breaking the uneasy silence that had enveloped the car.

“We’re almost there. And he knows we’re on the way. Just talk to him when we get there.”

“Right, yeah.” There was a beat of silence, and then Grace was pushing the button to power up her phone screen. “I’m going to text him.”

“And say what?”

“That I love him.” She replied, and I closed my mouth with a quiet snap. She typed quickly, and almost just as fast there was the quiet ding of a reply coming in. I glanced over at her, and Grace was smiling. “He says he loves me too.” She whispered, and I reached over and patted her knee, and she caught my hand between hers for a moment before letting it go so I could drive. The quiet then felt a little lighter, a little less on edge and more like the hundreds of other times we had fallen into our own thoughts while going to Will’s.

 

 

 

 

Will answered the door a few beats after I had knocked, looking even more tired than he had that morning. His eyes flickered over to Grace and they both stood awkwardly for a moment, both looking wary and anxious, before Grace took a step forward to grab him in a hug. I saw Will tense but then he hugged her back, pulling her in tighter and burying his face into her shoulder.

“Guys, should we go inside?” I asked after a long moment, a wary eye on Jack’s door and the elevator. Will and Grace finally pulled away from each other, Will wiping at his face in a way we all pretended not to see.

“We brought food, your favorite Will.” Grace said as I set the bags on the kitchen table. I put the smaller white bag I had brought full of pills and gauze and tape on the counter, catching Will’s eye from over Grace’s head and he nodded at me, lips thinning into a tight line.

“I’m not really hungry.” He started, and I cut him off by handing him one of the white Styrofoam containers full of still steaming food.

“Try eating anyway. Besides, some of these pills need to be taken with food.” I said, passing him silverware (the real stuff, because Will hated eating with plastic forks), and watching as Grace bumbled around the kitchen getting drinks. Will seemed to hesitate, like he couldn’t decide if he should argue or not, but he followed my gaze to where Grace was and then sighed. He sat down carefully at the table, fumbling for a second trying to put down both the food and his fork without jarring his hand. I sat next to him and started eating without waiting for Grace, giving Will a pointed look so that he rolled his eyes a little and followed suit.

“Okay, here, I got your gross sparking water for you Will.” Grace sat down a glass in front of him, and handed me a bottle of coke that we had bought at the restaurant. She paused before sitting down like there might be more to do, a very un-Gracelike think to do. She was usually the first to sit, letting me or Will to get everything and complaining if she had to help. This was usually accompanied by fond complaints or eye rolls, but today Will was sitting first, and Grace didn’t seem to want to run out of things to do. Finally though she settled down too, fiddling with her silverware. It was quickly quiet again, and I tried to remember the last time I had had so many uncomfortable silences in one day. Even when I was with doctors without borders and couldn’t speak the language there was usually talking and communicating, miming what you meant and struggling through the language barrier, but all today had been full of stilted attempts at conversation that either exploded in my face with tears or fell flat and left me feeling awkward and fidgety. So I just ate, figuring that eventually Will or Grace wouldn’t be able to take the silence anymore and would break it.

Predictably, it was Grace.

“Will? I’m… I’m sorry. And I’m glad you’re okay. Or okayish. Or you know, that you’re not too hurt. I guess maybe you’re not okay just-“

“Grace. Grace stop. I know what you mean. Thank you. I’m glad you’re here.” Will interrupted, putting down his fork to fold his hands in his lap and stare at them like there was something interesting there. “But I don’t want to talk about it or anything. Can we just sit, and watch tv or something? A movie. I just want to be with you.”

“Oh of course honey. We can do whatever you want.” Grace immediately stood up, abandoning her food and walking determinedly towards Will’s bedroom. Will turned bewildered eyes to me and I could only shrug, sliding his food towards him with a pointed look and he took another bite before Grace was rushing back in. Her arms were full of a thick blanket and half of the pillows off Will’s bed, and she dumped them on the love seat. Soon she had made what could only be called a nest. “Come sit with me.” She said, holding her hand out to Will. He took it, his much tanner fingers wrapping around her pale ones, and let her pull him to his feet and across the room. For a second he looked lost, standing there while she sat down, but it only took a minute before he was sitting too, curling into her and she pulled the fluffy blanket over the two of them so I could only see her wild red hair. The tv clicked on, Grace appearing to have snagged the remote before letting the nest swallow her up, but I knew that the show that they settled on didn’t matter.

They did this, when either of them had a bad day. They watched tv and cuddled together and both ended it much more relaxed than they had started. I didn’t mind, and sometimes Grace pulled me into the seat too and the three of us watched bad tv for a few hours. I knew this time that wouldn’t be helpful though, and so I finished my dinner, putting the leftovers away and tidying up the kitchen because if I didn’t, Will would. It didn’t take very long before the already clean space was pretty much spotless, and I pulled out my phone.

‘Call me when you want to leave and Ill come get you’ I typed out. ‘Im going to put out Wills pills that he needs tonight make sure he takes them’. My phone dinged just a few minutes after I was done typing out the second message, a ‘okay’ with a heart next to it.

The medications took just a few minutes to put out, and it wasn’t long before I was gathering my jacket to leave. Will and Grace were talking now, voices low, but I could hear muffled tears too. When I opened the door to leave, Grace lifted her head away from Will’s and shot me a teary smile, and I smiled back, raising my phone and pointing to it. She nodded, and I slipped out the door, unwilling to intrude on a private moment any more than I already had.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait. Hope you enjoy! Feel free to leave suggestions, what you wanna read next, and so on. Thanks for reading.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait. Hope you enjoy! Feel free to leave suggestions, what you wanna read next, and so on. Thanks for reading.
> 
> Will's POV now

When I woke up, Grace was sprawled out over my bed, her legs tangled with mine and her hair covering my face and both our pillows. She was sleeping with her mouth open, taking up most of the space and hogging all of the blankets, and I took a moment to study her, fondness growing in my chest. I felt calmer than the day before, the anxiety that had been a constant presence, pooling low in my stomach and only subsiding enough to ignore it if I was wholly concentrating on something else, was far enough away that I could pretend that it didn’t exist for the moment. My hand was starting to throb though, joining the constant ache and pull that was my left side, and so I had to unearth myself from Grace’s octopus limbs to shuffle to the kitchen for my pain meds. 

We had fallen asleep pretty early. I hadn’t…hadn’t told her exactly what had happened, didn’t know if could ever do that, even to myself. But I had told her about what I had done after, about coming home and standing under the too hot spray of my shower for hours before finally getting dressed and calling Leo. About scrubbing at the marks that were blooming dark under my skin until the usual olive tone was red and raw, and how I had thrown away every single thing I had been wearing, even my favorite pair of boots. She had started crying somewhere in there, hot tears that I had wiped away before I had started crying myself. And eventually I had fallen asleep with my head tucked into her shoulder and she had woken me up some time later and led me to bed, her arm around my waist too gentle to hurt even against my bruised ribs. 

I took the pills that Leo had told me to, resolutely ignoring the face that one was to prevent HIV because that wasn’t something I thought I could deal with, and idly opened the fridge to stare at what I had. I knew I was supposed to take them with food, but I wasn’t hungry, hadn’t been hungry since it had happened, and the thought of cooking and eating made me want to go back to bed and lay next to Grace and pretend like everything was fine. Or maybe like something bad had happened, but something not too bad, so Grace was over to comfort me and be nice to me and I could just ignore everything. So I did. When I got back to my room, Grace was still asleep. I lay down next to her and she immediately turned over and curled around me, and I closed my eyes and let myself fall back into the comforting darkness.

 

“Be quiet Jack! You’ll wake up Will!” I jolted awake at Grace whisper-shouting, something that made her voice sound like a whisper but be as loud as her normal speaking voice. I could still feel the fuzzy aftereffects of my pain meds so I hadn’t been asleep very long, and Grace’s place on the bed was still warm. 

“I want him to wake up! Where is he! He’s never still asleep right now, and he hasn’t talked to me in two days!” Jack’s voice sounded angry, but I could hear the worry there, and I got out of bed to stand next to the door and listen to them argue. 

“He’s just sick, Jack. He’s got… he’s got a cold. So he’s sleeping.” Grace lied, and I smiled. She had always been bad at lying, especially on the fly, but it was sweet anyway. 

“So let me see him!” Jack screeched, and I reached out to open the door, but hesitated. I didn’t want Jack to worry, but letting him see the bruises that wrapped around my throat and creeped up my jaw wasn’t going to reassure him about anything. I couldn’t explain what had happened, not when I couldn’t be sure how he would react, not now, but his voice was high and strained and I didn’t want to add more stress to what he was feeling. “Is he mad at me?” I heard him ask finally, softer, and I had to talk to him. 

“I’m not mad, Jack.” I said, stepping out of my room and into the living room, and he spun around, face brightening.

“Will!!” He bounced towards me and I couldn’t help the flinch backwards, and he stopped immediately. His eyes flickered over my face, to my jaw and the base of my throat, to the splint on my hand. “Will.” He said again, and I swallowed hard and made myself look him in the eye.

“Hey.”

“You’re hurt.” He reached out to me, to cup my jaw, and Ihad to force myself to not shrink away from his touch. 

“I’m…I’m fine.” He turned my face to look closer, and I looked behind him at Grace. She was standing next to the couch, halfway to us like she couldn’t decide to intervene or not, but something on my face must have made her decide.

“Jack. Can you go get us some coffee grounds from your apartment? Will’s out. And then we can talk, okay?” Her voice was gentle, and Jack let me go with a murmur of agreement. He was much quieter than normal, eyes not leaving me as he slipped out the door. I slumped against the wall immediately, and Grace was there, running soothing hands over my shoulders. 

“I can’t tell him.” I whispered. Grace took my hand, running absent fingers along my palm.

“I…I could. If you want. Or however much you want me to tell him. Or we can just tell him you were mugged?” She suggested, and I closed my eyes. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I owed it to him to tell him, or if it was okay to just tell him I was mugged. If I did tell him, I didn’t want him freaking out, but that was pretty much guaranteed, wasn’t it? Having Leo tell Grace had worked out better than I expected it to, but it was starting to make me feel like a coward.

“Maybe…” I went to sit on the couch, scrubbing my hands along my face. I felt tired and foggy, and that wasn’t helping. “Maybe I can try to tell him. If I can’t, can you?” I asked her, and Grace immediately nodded.

“Of course. Anything you need. It’ll be okay, Will.” I reached out for her hand and she laced our fingers together. It was only a moment before Jack was opening the door again. He walked in at a normal speed, which was very slow compared to his usual bursting through the door excitement. 

“I got your coffee.” He said, but put it down on the table and came to sit with us without me having to ask him to. 

“Thank-“ 

“What happened?” He blurted out, seemingly unable to wait for me to finish. I sighed, and he looked a little embarrassed but didn’t look away, his face worried. 

“I…I was at the bar on 5th, you know the new one?”

“The one with the cowboys?” 

“No, that’s the one on ninth.” I corrected, and he scrunched up his nose.

“Oh! The one that has all the roses on the wall.” He said, and bounced in his seat a little at my nod. “I love that bar! They have the best drinks, and I met this guy there the other week that-“

“Jack!” Grace interrupted, but I didn’t mind too much. At least he was acting a little more normally than when he had first noticed that something wasn’t right.

“Sorry, sorry. Go on, Will.” He tucked his hands under his thighs, the picture of concentrated listening, and the fondness that being around my friends caused was suddenly replaced with panic because after the very next sentence there was no going back, no taking away what I was about to say. I swallowed hard, trying to ignore what sounded like the ocean crashing in my ears.

“I was there and. And I. I was leaving and I was outside and so-someone.” I stuttered, and Grace squeezed my hand hard, grounding me. 

“Someone what.” Jack said softly, leaning forward and reaching forward like he was going to touch my knee but stopping a few inches short. 

“I was raped.” I could barely hear myself say it over the pounding in my head, could barely see his reacting because everything seemed very far away and blurry. My breath caught in my chest and I clenched both my hands into fists, ignoring the pain from my broken finger and almost welcoming it even because it was sharp and hot but better than the roaring storm that felt like it was all around me. 

“Will. Will! Hey come on, it’s okay, listen to me.” Grace’s voice said, and I felt her hands work their way into both of mine, forcing my fingers to unclench. 

“I’m so sorry Will.” Jack said, and he was there too, next to me on the couch all of a sudden, his knee pressed against mine. I leaned against him, suddenly unable to keep sitting up, and he wrapped an arm around my chest. I gasped as he knocked against a bruise but didn’t move, unwilling to leave the hold even as a part of my brain urged me to stop embarrassing myself in front of them.

“It’s okay Will, I promise. We’re here.” Grace soothed, and I reached out blindly to her when she let go of my hands, but she just moved to stroking my hair off my forehead. “We’re here, and we aren’t going to leave. We promise. Right, Jack?” 

“Right. Right, we won’t leave. Not for anything.” Jack repeated, and I closed my eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you go! Sorry if the wait was long, I didn't write over Christmas :(

The days seemed to pass slowly, almost every moment marred by dark thoughts and panic lingering at the edge of my emotions, but then I paused and realized it had been a week since it happened, even though it felt like yesterday. My body was healing, the bruises still ugly but turning a pale yellow, and Leo had gotten my blood results back. They were all negative, but he reminded me I would need to redo all the tests within a few weeks. Grace had convinced me to take some time off work, and the thought of people asking what had happened when they saw me looking beat up and moving stiffly was enough to not put up a fight about it. 

So I spent the week around the house, mostly with Grace. She hadn’t said so, but she was working mostly from my apartment, leaving only occasionally to meet with clients, so I suspected she had canceled at least a couple of meetings, but she denied it and changed the subject when I asked. Really, I was touched, if also a bit overwhelmed with the attention. She was there to distract me when I panicked, keeping the worst of my emotions at bay. We had ventured out a few times, to the grocery store and to dinner, but any time I was surrounded by people I felt panicky and dizzy, and going home brought relief like a huge stone had been lifted off my chest that I hadn’t even known was there until it was gone. The first time it happened had surprised us both. The little market that sold the wine that I needed to cook dinner was unusually crowed, the narrow aisles already a tight squeeze on a good day, and I had tried to ignore the panic stealing my breath away until a man had bumped into me. I didn’t wait to see if he apologized, just turned and fought my way out the door until the prickliness that all the people had caused was gone enough so I could think and realized that I had gone two blocks without a word to Grace.

So we stayed home a lot, and Grace and Jack and Karen came over and distracted me and mostly acted like nothing had happened. Sometimes Leo came over too, both with the whole gang or just with Grace, and he waited til he caught me alone to ask how I was feeling, physically, to check the level of the pills left in the medicine bottles with a careful eye, and to remind me to tell him if anything felt wrong. I could always read the concern in his eyes but he kept everything more casual, and let me slip from the conversations when someone else wandered back to us.

I had let Grace and Jack tell Karen without me. I wasn’t sure how they had done it, not willing to hear the story, but Karen had come over that night and greeted me with her usual insult rolled inside a joke, automatically pouring herself a drink from my collection of liquor. 

“You want anything?” She asked, watching as Jack and Grace fought about what to put on the television. The whole thing seemed a little exaggerated, like they knew they would usually fight and did it for my benefit, but I appreciated the act of normalcy even if they weren’t very good at it. 

“No thanks, I have some wine.” I stood up anyway and went to stand next to her, and I could tell she was studying me, watching the way I had to use the couch arm to leverage myself up or else my ribs protested, and her eyes lingered at the marks on my face before going back to our friends. 

“How are you doing?” She asked, uncharacteristically quiet. I curled my toes hard against the floor, uncomfortable, but shrugged.

“Okay. Well. Better than I was, I guess.” I took a sip of my wine, holding the liquid in my mouth because I liked the bite of the bitter liquid, and she nodded, looking indecisive for a moment before turning to me.

“If you need someone to talk to about it. I don’t know if I can offer much advice, or comfort. But I won’t get upset, and I understand what you’re going through.” She made eye contact with me, serious and intense, and I felt myself tense up in sudden understanding. “Okay?” 

“Y-yes. Thank you Karen.” I touched her hand and she let me, squeezing my fingers briefly before turning away from me. I knew that I probably wouldn’t go to her, but that she offered was enough, and Karen and I had occasionally been able to help each other out. She wasn’t the person she pretended to be. Most of the time, anyway. 

“Jack! Come entertain me before I die of boredom over here with old man Will over here.” She yelled across the room, and Jack perked up and bounded over to her, and I smiled at the exasperated look Grace shot me. 

The rest of the night had felt almost like before, Karen and Jack making fun of me, if with slightly less pointed barbs, and I could ignore most of the concerned looks that they all shot me any time I winced, or the times they caught me staring off into space, caught up in my own head. Most of the time when I did that Grace laid a gentle hand on mine, bringing me back to them with a quiet question and letting me pretend like I hadn’t slipped away from them and missed the last few minutes of conversation. They all kept plying me with food, Jack foregoing the usual jokes about my weight to press upon me sandwiches and power bars and smoothies, usually under the guise of being hungry himself and not wanting to eat alone. I ate them, because I found myself forgetting to eat otherwise, skipping dinner to sit in the shower or bath, or to cocoon myself in blankets and watch television.

Things weren’t always okay. Of course they weren’t. Grace had spent the night a few times, but the other nights were some of the worst. I hardly slept, and when I did, I had nightmares. The worst was three nights after, the first night that I had convinced Grace that she needed to go home to her husband. I woke up terrified, coated in sweat and when I reached up to wipe my face, tears were running down my cheeks without my having noticed. I stumbled out of bed, barely noticing the flare of pain from both my side and my hand from being tangled in the blankets, and fell clumsily to my knees in the middle of the room. The floor was cold, unforgiving, and I curled over myself and pressed my forehead against the thin fabric of my pajama pants until I could breathe again, until the panic receded from my chest to realize where I was. It was still there though, if less, and I pushed myself off the floor without thinking about it and was at Jack’s door before I could talk myself out of it, knocking with a trembling hand and letting myself lean against the doorway because my legs felt like they were ready to give out at any time. 

“Will?” He asked, bewildered, when he finally answered, and he reached out and put his hands on my shoulders. I knew I was shaking, and I leaned into him and we stumbled back into his apartment, Jack scrambling to shut the door behind us. “Will, what’s wrong?” He asked again, and he sat down on the couch so that I tumbled down with him, curling my legs up and burying my face into my hands.

“I’m sorry.” I mumbled, and I could feel Jack hovering his hand around my shoulder. Finally he touched my head, stroking his thumb over the short hair on my temple. 

“It’s okay.” 

“I could-couldn’t be alone.” I confessed, still pressing my hands against my face because I didn’t want to see his expression, unsure if I would see pity or annoyance or what, but Jack just kept running his hand through my hair, his other arm wrapping around my shoulders. 

“That’s okay. We can hang out.” He said, and his hands stopped for a moment, and I heard the tv click on and a blanket was draped over both of us. He put his arm back around me and then hesitated. “Is this okay?” He asked, and I nodded. We didn’t talk, just watched late night reruns of old sitcoms, and Jack eventually fell asleep first, and when I woke up the sun was shining in the apartment and I could breathe without feeling like there was a stone in my throat.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, this is pretty short, sorry about that. Jack's POV, and a little jump back in time.

I sat with Will on my couch, a warm weight against my side, his head tipped back against my collarbone. The apartment was silent except for the tv, playing old reruns, and the sound of our breathing. I could tell Will was awake, because Will had a particular way of breathing when he was sleeping that wasn’t snoring but that I always teased him was, and right now his breathing was even and slow but not his sleep breathing. He had his eyes closed though, and I did my best not to disturb him as I ran gentle fingers through his hair at the back of his head. He needed a haircut, the hair at the nape of his neck almost long enough to curl slightly, and I smoothed it down with my fingertips. 

He had banged at my door at 2 this morning, jolting me from where I had been dozing in front of the television. When I had opened the door, still rubbing the blurriness from my eyes, he had been shaking and sweaty and so unlike the Will I was used to seeing. I reached out to him and he had collapsed against me, barely helping as we stumbled to the couch, curling into himself and hiding his face away from me. His whispered confession of not being able to be alone had been heart shattering, his voice hoarse and cracking, and I had froze for a second before deciding to act like everything was fine, covering us with a blanket and letting him calm down next to me. 

It had been a hard couple of days. Harder for Will, obviously, but seeing him so obviously beaten down and upset was devastating. He was trying to hide it, to pretend that he was fine, but he kept spacing out, not hearing his name until I called out to him a few times, and panicking at the smallest things. Grace was constantly with him, there to comfort or bring him back, and he was clinging back to her like he depended on her. Which maybe he did. 

Telling Karen had been weird. I wasn’t used to giving bad news, and I wasn’t used to being serious with Karen. Grace and I had both gone, and I told her after she had only drunk 3 drinks. She had paused with her glass halfway to her mouth before drinking the whole thing down instead of just taking a sip, wiping her mouth and setting the glass back onto the table with a bang. Her face looked weird, like she had smelt something bad.  
“Well.” She said. “That’s some shit right there.” And then she made another drink before saying we should go to Will’s place. 

So the last few days had been bad, even without adding anything happening in my personal life, like the hot guy I had met online ghosting me after our date. Sitting with Will on my couch, the TV playing but mostly ignored, I could feel the weight of all that but pushed it away carelessly, focusing instead on the feel of Will’s hair, soft and slightly greasy at the roots, and his breath hot against my chest. The lullaby of commercials sent me off to sleep, still wrapped around Will like his protector. 

 

A few more days passed, much like the ones before. My life continued, and Will’s did too, if put on hold a little bit. We spent most nights at Will’s apartment, and he seemed almost okay. We were having dinner, a little bit of wine, a lot of cheese. Will was laughing, the bruises across his jaw faded to the point that they were hardly there if you weren’t looking for them, and he reached out to touch my shoulder when I said something funny, just like always. I grabbed his wrist, tugging him forward a little bit, and Will jerked away from me. He leaned too far backward, falling out of his chair and to the floor with his legs tangled up, his face immediately changing to panic. He scrambled backwards, ignoring that it brought his chair crashing to the ground, and I froze, hand still in midair from where I had reached up to grab him. Grace had rushed towards Will after a moment of shock, knocking her wine over in her rush, and I watched as the red liquid ran off the edge of the table in a dark stream, staining the tablecloth. It dripped onto the floor, a few drops becoming a puddle, and I watched as it grew until Karen was in front of me, her face filling my vision instead.

“Jack, honey. Jack. I think we should leave. Let’s go do something a little more fun, hmm? We can go shopping, there’s a new handbag I saw, we can get the whole collection. Or go somewhere with better alcohol, Will has no selection.” She said, her words slightly fuzzy and far away, and she put her hand on my shoulder, coaxing me up. I stood because she wanted me to, turning to stare at where Will had backed himself into the kitchen island, Grace kneeling next to him and saying words that I could here but not comprehend. I must have stopped moving because Karen gave me a little push, taking my arm as she guided me away. “Honey. He’s okay. Let Grace take care of him, he doesn’t want all of us here.” She told me, and then more quietly, “That’s not your fault, honey, you just startled him.” She patted my arm, starting again to talk about what we should do next, what bar we should go to, but once we were out the door she steered me to my own apartment.

“I…I thought you wanted to go shopping.” I managed to get out, and Karen shrugged, making a drink from a bottle she pulled out from behind one of my shelves. I had never seen it before, so she must have left it there for times like this.

“Maybe later. Let’s just do something here, okay?” She asked, and shoved me down onto my couch before following me down. I was reminded of Will and me sitting here a couple nights before, and felt my throat tighten with tears. Karen sighed, patting my shoulder with only a little bit of revulsion on her face. She started nattering on about one of her staff, their incompetence, and made me participate, and I managed to stop feeling a few moments from tears.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grace's POV, here. I think next chapter will be Will.

It seemed dramatic to say my world came crashing down, because my life was fundamentally the same as it had always been. But when Leo sat me down on our couch, our white 3 thousand couch that I had agonized over for 3 weeks, and told me that Will had been attacked, had been raped, I had heard literal crashes as I tried to process what he had said, once I finally believed it. It seemed impossible. Not that men could be raped, or whatever. I knew that was true, but Will was so strong, so unmoving and solid and always there, always a stable place to land, that I couldn’t believe that that could happen. I had hardly ever seen Will cry, had never seen him lose control, and couldn’t imagine him so vulnerable. 

That first night was one of the hardest. I had pretended like everything was fine, that I wasn’t 2 seconds away from bursting into hysterical tears and latching onto him like a Koala bear, but I had lasted until he had started sniffling onto my shoulder in the middle of a McDonalds commercial before I had started crying myself. Leo had left us and eventually we had both calmed down, Will’s legs tangled with mine and his face squashed into my shoulder.

“I’m tired.” He mumbled, rubbing at his eyes with his hand not encased with plastic. He did look tired, dark circles prominent in a way that I hadn’t seen since his break up with Vince. His hair was sticking straight up, or as much as it could cut so short, and I had to resist the urge to flatten it back down myself. 

“I can go home.” I offered gently, and Will sat up, groaning and holding a hand to his side at the sudden movement.

“No! I mean. I don’t want you to leave. You could stay? Stay the night.” He said, eyes flitting away from me as he played with the hem of his t shirt. 

“Of course. Whatever you want.” I touched his arm, and I felt the muscles under my hand jump and tense but he didn’t pull away from me. He smiled at me but it looked forced, his lips pressing together in a mockery of the usual grin full of warmth that he usually gave me. “Do you want me to sleep in the guest?” I asked, worrying my lip. I wanted to offer to stay in his bed, close to him, like we sometimes did when one of us was upset, but I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. I wasn’t sure what to do with how to touch him. He was flinching away, obviously jumpy in even the couple hours I had been over, but he had his legs intertwined with mine just like he always did, his his pressed against mine.

“You could.” He said, and I realized he was biting his lip in the same way I was, indecision plain on his face.

“I could sleep with you. If you wanted.” I offered. “I don’t know if that would help, but if it would.” 

“That would be nice.” Will said, glancing up at me. He was blushing a little, red creeping down his neck, but I just smiled at him and stretched, feeling my back pop and protest at lying curled up in the too small for two people for hours. “I have some of your sweats you left over last time.” 

“Awesome. I’ll go get changed, I’ll meet you in your room?” I hopped up off the couch, ignoring Will’s snort of amusement when I got tangled in the blanket and almost fell down into the living room. I grabbed my clothes from my space at the bottom of the guest dresser, feeling anxious leaving Will alone even if for a few minutes, just rooms away. I knew that that was crazy, that he had been alone all last night and most of today, but I didn’t want to think about how he felt when he was alone, when I wasn’t there to make sure everything was okay. I slid into Will’s room in under a minute, a new personal best that I internally fist pumped at, and stopped short because Will was at his closet, pulling off his shirt to change into a new one. 

Leo had told me that he was bruised up, and I had seen the ones on his jaw, and saw his swollen hand and how he winced when he moved if he thought nobody was looking, his careful mask of blankness when we were. But even knowing those things hadn’t prepared me for the mess of bruises spilling across his ribcage and back, mixed with spots of raw scrapes. Will turned around at the sound of my gasp, and crossed his arms across his chest, covering a dark red wound on his collarbone. It looked like a bite mark, ugly and deep.

“Grace!” He yelped, holding his shirt up and backing into the bathroom, and I turned around, feeling heat bloom up my face in embarrassment, like I had caught him doing something bad even though I had seen him much more undressed more times than I could even really remember.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t see anything really!” I yelled, leaning against the door until I heard Will walk buck up to me.

“You can turn back around.” He said, rubbing at the back of his head. “I’m sorry. You...startled me. And I didn’t really want you to see me, like this.” He gestured down at himself, now clad in a different college t shirt.

“Like what?”

“All. Ugly and bruised.”

“It’s not ugly, Will.” I reached out to touch the bruise that was peeking out of the collar of his shirt, but he flinched away from my fingers before I could.

“Don’t lie. I can see it. It’s hideous. And I hate it. It’s ugly and makes me look. I don’t know. Weak.” His face twisted when he said weak, and I saw him swallow hard at the word. He turned away from me, slumping down onto the bed with his head in his hands.

“I’m not lying. It looks bad in that it looks like it hurts, Will. That’s all. And even if it did, it’ll fade. And you certainly don’t look weak.” I sat next to him, keeping a careful space between us since he didn’t seem like he wanted to be touched right now. “I think it makes you look strong, really.” I said, and Will snorted faintly without lifting his head. “It does!! Like you got into a fight, defending someone’s honor.”

“A fight that I lost.” He mumbled, but he sat up and leaned back onto his elbows so that he could look at me.

“Well. We’ll just imagine that the other person looks worse, hmm?” I copied his position, before collapsing back onto the bed because my arms were too tired to want to hold me up. “Besides. Bruises make you look cool, right? That’s what Jack says.” 

“Like I trust Jack as an expert about what makes someone look cool.” He leaned back too so that we mirrored each other, linking hishands together on his chest. He was quiet for a moment and then sighed, closing his eyes. “You...you saw the mark? Here?” He rubbed at the spot lightly.

“Yeah. It’s...a bite mark? Right?” I asked, and Will grimaced, pressing his lips together tightly.

“Ye-yeah. There’s another one, on my thigh. I’m afraid it’ll scar.” His voice was quiet but calm, but he had stopped rubbing at his chest and instead had a handful of his shirt gripped tight, knuckles white. 

“I’m sorry.” I said.

“It’s...I mean. Leo didn’t say it would, and they’re new so they could heal they’re just. I don’t want them to.”

“I know. I don’t either.”

“They’re hideous. I’ll be hideous.” His voice cracked at that.

“No. Will, I promise. Even if they scar, it won’t be that bad. You’ll still be same old, beautiful Will. Okay? It won’t mean anything.” I propped myself up on my elbow and put my hand on his cheek, turning his head to face me. “Scars and bruises don’t mean anything. You’re you.” I said, and he blinked up at me. His eyes were wet but he wasn’t crying, and he put his hand over mine, warm and slightly rough, pressed a kiss to my palm. 

“Thanks.” He whispered.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone. Will's POV here, and a bit more graphic here than anything else has been, so TW for that.

I was fine. I was thinking about that night constantly, replaying it over and over in my head, the feel of the brick wall where he pinned my wrists above my head, the rough pavement biting into my knees, but I was dealing, going to work now during the day, seeing Grace and Jack and Karen at night, sometimes even leaving the house to see them. Everytime I undid my belt I flashed back to when his impatient hands had fumbled with my buckle, so I just stopped wearing a belt most of the time, half the time not even unbuttoning my pants if I could help it, just shoving my pants down over my hips. I didn’t like feeling someone’s breath near me, remembering his hot and overpowering against the back of my neck, but all I had to do was take a step back from people when they stood too close. I dealt with it, even if just with avoidance.

Seeing my friends did help some. But after they left my place, Grace always the last, always lingering until it was almost too late to make the trek across town, I sat in the shower for hours with the hot water blasting, skin turning red, until I couldn’t feel anything and stumbled off to bed like I was drunk, not bothering to dry off and letting the water soak into the bed sheets. When I could sleep, I did, but nightmares kept waking me up, his hands and voice following me into my dreams. Everytime I woke up, the sheets would be twisted off the mattress, my blanket tangled on the floor, my ribs screaming from my thrashing. Sometimes, my ribs woke me up before the nightmare itself could, and I was perversely grateful for the bruises that were fading slower than the rest, still a faint red and blue mottled across my side. 

I hadn’t gone back to Jack’s place since that first time. It had helped a lot, because no matter how much Jack and I argued, or how I teased him and how ridiculous he sometimes was, I always felt safe around him. His warm weight had made me feel secure instead of trapped, and the even sound of his breathing had lulled me to a better sleep than I had had alone for days. But I didn’t want to bother him, didn’t want him to think I was weak or not coping. It was the same reason I hadn’t asked Grace to sleep over more, only if she offered first, even though waking up from a nightmare to see her hair spreading over my pillow like particularly grabby tentacles managed to calm me faster than almost anything else. They were being supportive, more patient and gentle than I thought them capable before this had happened, but who knew when I would get too annoying, too needy.   
So I pretended to be better than I actually probably was, trying to get back to normal. I smiled and laughed and hid when my hands shaked or I could barely get through dinner because I was too tired and eating my stomach churn now, ignoring Grace’s worried looks and Karen’s long, knowing stares. I invited everyone to dinner, making an elaborate dish I knew everybody would like but nobody would appreciate the work that I put into it, letting the methodical chopping and stirring and tasting lull me into almost a meditative state. Even with food not being my best friend recently, cooking was still calming, even fun. 

“Hey Will.” Grace reappeared from where she had vanished into my bathroom, skin pink and glowing, and I squinted suspiciously at her. 

“Did you use my new moisturizer?” I accused, and her hands flew up to cover her face.

“No!” She answered, voice pitched high, and when I just stared at her she sighed and flopped down onto the couch, lounging against the arm. “Okay, well, maybe. But I was just testing it out for you! I wanted to make sure it was good enough for your sensitive skin. You know how you are.”

“Sure.” I pointed my spatula at her. “That was expensive though, so no more testing it.”

“Fine, fine. No more testing it. But really, you should be thanking me.” She flipped through a magazine I had laying on the table, though she couldn’t have been doing more than looking at the pictures. She tilted her head back, watching me cook. “How many bottles of wine did you buy?”

“Two.”

“Two? You know Karen is coming, right?”

“And you know Karen never sticks to just wine. I got her her own bottle of gin.” I gestured vaguely to the liquor cart, the new bottle of gin standing among all the half empty bottles of various kinds. I hadn’t been drinking much lately, just sipping from one glass of wine most nights when we had dinner, because even the slightly hint of the fog that came from being drunk was enough to make me anxious and on edge now.

“Hmm.” Grace hummed, immediately engrossed back into the magazine, and I finished cooking dinner, Jack and Karen coming in just a few minutes after I was done, sauntering in with shouts of big news that really wasn’t when I was scrubbing the skillet clean. Jack surprisingly helped me serve the food, smiling at me when we bumped hips and asking me about my day, and even listening to most of my response before he got distracted and told me about his most recent love.

“I met him at the gym, and you wouldn’t believe the quads on this guy. It’s almost a little too much, you know people with that nice of bodies are just hiding bad personalities, but honey, he’s just too hot to pass up. We’re meeting tomorrow to work out together, and hopefully after we can fit in another work out.” He winked at me when he put the last dish down, and I rolled my eyes at him, but didn’t bother to fight the smile I knew was on my face. Eventually, everyone managed to sit down and eat without distraction, the sound of forks scraping and the bump of the wine glasses hitting the table the only noise for a few moments. 

I managed to eat half my plate, pushing the remaining asparagus around my plate listlessly while listening to everyone else talk, more at ease than I had been all day. Karen was complaining about lazy workers while Grace made thinly veiled references about Karen being a hypocrite, and when Jack responded with an unusually good quip I reached out to touch his shoulder, actually shaking with laughter for the first time in ages. Jack curled his fingers around my wrist, face bright and happy, but his hand was too tight around my wrist, and when he tugged at me I felt panic flood through me, his hand suddenly much hotter and larger than it should’ve been.

I knew what flashbacks were, even before everything, and the research I had done after that night had just given me more information. (Of course I researched it, I researched everything. I was a lawyer.) I had been having them, mostly at night after waking up, sometimes little ones during the day, but I always knew they were happening, that it wasn’t real and I was safe. But Jack’s hand turned into his, crushing the delicate bones of my wrist together as I pulled away, hard and unforgiving. I felt the floor come up around me, jarring when I fell against it, and I scrambled backwards, away from him, until I felt a wall against my back and couldn’t get further away. I curled my legs up, squeezing my eyes shut against him. Someone was too close to me, and I flinched away but the wall was there, trapping me, and I heard a sound that I knew couldn’t have come from me because I didn’t whimper like that, even when I could feel his hands running up my legs, tugging sharply at my pants. 

“No.” I whispered, pushing helplessly at him. His hands were hot and rough and roamed over me like he could devour me with his fingers, and it felt like burns were forming in their wake, oversensitive and painful. He was whispering in my ear, what he was going to do to me, what a slut I was, and I felt the hard bulge of his cock as he pressed his pelvis against me, grinding into the hollow of my hips. I gasped, curling tighter into myself.

“Will, Will.”

“No, please.”

“Will, it’s okay. It’s okay, it’s just me.”

“Please don’t, don’t hurt me.” 

“Nobody’s going to hurt you. Please, open your eyes. It’s just me, please Will.” The voice pleaded, and I blinked open my eyes because it broke on the last please, pain evident in the words. Grace was in front of me, her face hazy and tear streaked but Grace all the same, her eyes wide. She had her hands hovering a careful couple of inches above my arm, kneeling next to me on the ground. 

“Grace?” I asked, surprised to find it hard to talk, my throat tight and sounding like it was full of gravel. 

“Yeah. Yeah it’s me, are you back?” She asked, reaching out but stopping suddenly. “Can I touch you? Your arm? Or your hair?” She whispered, and when I gave a careful nod she put her hand on my forearm, right below my elbow. I flinched, waiting for it to feel bad, but it felt like Grace, her hand delicate and warm, but not burning. 

“I’m-I’m sorry. I dunno what happened.” I struggled to sit up a little, because my head felt heavy and fuzzy and I couldn’t breathe right, my chest tightening. 

“You...you had a flashback, maybe? Jack grabbed you, and you went somewhere else.” Grace told me, and I shook my head, squeezed my eyes shut.

“I’m sorry. Where is he?” I scanned the room, but it was empty except the two of us, dinner still on the table, a puddle of wine seeping into the floorboards. Grace linked our fingers together.

“Karen took him back to his apartment. Here, let’s get you up, okay? Sit on the couch with me.” She said, and I let her pull me up off the floor and to the couch, her arm wrapped around my waist because it was just a few feet but I was unsteady, swaying when she let me go. I grabbed a pillow and wrapped my arms around it, resting my cheek on the textured fabric and closing my eyes, letting the hazy grayness overwhelm me for a few moments before Grace was touching my arm, holding out a mug of something hot to me. “Where’d you just go?” She asked quietly, sitting besides me and tucking her feet up underneath her. 

“I...I don’t know. Nowhere. Like when you space out. I’ve been doing that a lot, I guess.” The mug was warm against my skin, and I pressed my palms against the sides of it to feel the heat seeping out. 

“Yeah. Why’s that, do you know?”

“Not really. I guess it’s just...safer, than to think about stuff. I don’t really like the stuff I’ve been thinking about.” I fiddled with the handle of the mug, running my thumb over an imperfection where it met the curve of the side, feeling the roughness as I pressed hard against it, almost enough to hurt. I didn’t want to look up, not really sure what expression Grace would have, what she would think, so the mug and the background of my coffee table was safer.

“What are you thinking about?” She asked, voice soft, but not hesitant. 

“You know.” 

“I don’t, not really. You haven’t told me very much. I don’t know what you’re thinking, you’re hard to read sometimes, you know?” She scooted closer to me, rested her head on my shoulder so I could see her curls spill over my chest, bright against the dark of my shirt. I shifted back so we fit better together, let her hair pillow my head as I leaned mine against hers, supporting each other. 

“Just. What happened. Sometimes, I feel it happening. Over and over. I feel his hands on me.” I had to stop, swallow hard against the lump in my throat, but Grace didn’t interrupt. “I hear what he said. He called me a slut. Said I wanted him to...to fuck me, that he was just doing what I obviously wanted him to. He said I had pretty lips. And I think about how stupid I was. How I should’ve just fought back.” Tears were burning my eyes now, and I couldn’t help the small sob that escaped even though I was biting hard on my lower lip. Grace took the mug away from me, setting it on the coffee table before taking my hands in hers. 

“You did everything right Will, because you’re here. You did everything right to get through it and come back to us, okay? I promise. It wasn’t your fault.” I squeezed my eyes shut, but Grace kept talking. “And I don’t know how to make him shut up, but we can figure it out. We’ll find someone for you to talk to, because I think you need to. If you want to, too. I don’t know what to do either, but we’ll find someone who does.” She squeezed my hands between hers, and when I opened my eyes she was crying too, but her voice was clear and unwavering. 

“Okay.” I whispered. 

“And I want you to tell me about this stuff. What you feel. Please, Will, don’t make yourself go through it alone.”

“I won’t.” I promised, leaning forward into her, and she wrapped her arms around me, and it felt safe.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter. I didn't know it before I wrote it, because I'm terrible at planning, but it is. I think I might write a sequel if anybody is interested. I kind of want to write it Jack/Will. Let me know if anybody would be interested, things you would want to see, etc. Anyway, I hope you enjoy! Thank you for reading this far and sticking with me. 
> 
> Oh, Leo's POV here. How it begins it ends.

“How are you doing, really?” I asked Will, gathering up the used supplies from where I had taken his blood. He was rolling down his sleeve, frowning at the button as he fumbled with it. His hand was mostly healed, but he said it was sometimes a little stiff, and I could see that as he tried to manipulate the small piece of plastic. 

“I’m okay. Better, anyway. Grace told you I’ve been seeing a therapist?” 

“Yeah, she mentioned it. She was really glad, she said you liked them?” 

“Yeah, I think I do. She’s a little blunt, I guess, but I think that’s good for me.” Will ran a hand over his hair, sighing a little as he shifted on the exam table, paper crinkling loudly. “It’s been a couple months now, and I’m not thinking about it as much, or panicking anymore very often. So she’s helping. I wish it was going faster, but you know.” He shrugged.

“Well, I’m really glad you’re feeling better.” I said, leaning back against the cabinets behind me. I really was. Will and I weren’t close, would never be the best of friends or anything, but I did like him and care about him, and I would never wish for anything bad to happen to him. Seeing him so broken had been terrible, and seeing Grace worry over him hadn’t been fun either. She was finally starting to stop panicking if she hadn’t heard from him immediately after texting him, tearfully imagining every bad possibility of what could have happened. 

“Thanks. I’m still having a little trouble eating, but those meal replacement drinks you recommended are working pretty well. And I’m only drinking them every other day or so, now.” He said. “It’s a lot better than when you brought it up the first time.” 

I had brought it up about a month after Will had been attacked. He had always been pretty fit, thin, no matter how often Jack poked at his weight. But he had started dropping weight fast, his clothes hanging off his shoulders and hips instead of clinging to him like they had before. His cheekbones were sharper, making his eyes look deeper in his face, and when those things made me look closer, I could tell the bones in his hands were easier to see now, the hollows of his collar bones more pronounced. And when we ate together he just pushed food around his plate, taking bites sometimes but mostly just listlessly stabbing at his food. I had brought it up delicately, scared that he was trying to lose weight on purpose for some reason, because of what had happened, but he had just bit his lip uncomfortably, staring at a spot over my shoulder. 

“Will, I gotta ask you about something. Are you...are you trying to lose weight? Or is something else going on? Because it seems like you’ve dropped at least, what, 10 pounds? Or maybe a bit more?” I asked when Grace left us alone to go shower. We were going to the movies, and she had managed to spill a whole bowl of soup down her front. Will fidgeted, but sat down on the couch and motioned for me to sit too.

“I’m not…. I’m not trying to, I swear. I like what I look like. Or liked. I just. It’s so hard to eat, Leo. I try, I really do, and I’ll even be hungry but then I’ll make something and have it in front of me, and I take a bite and I get nauseous, and it smells disgusting and I can’t. Just the thought of...of chewing and swallowing and having it inside me makes me feel like I’m going to vomit.” He leaned forward so his head was in his hands, rubbing roughly at his hair. “I don’t want to lose weight, but it’s so hard.” 

“I’m sorry. What have you tried?”

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, have you tried different foods? Taking some supplements, or some meal replacement drinks? I can recommend some that we suggest for people who have trouble eating or gaining weight. You should still try to eat regular food, but if you can’t that day, you can have the drink or shake instead to make sure you’re still getting enough calories. And there’s meal bars, but that still requires eating so I don’t know if that works for you.” I mentally went through the list of ones we suggested, trying to think of the ones that would work best for Will. He had lifted his head, cocking it to the side as he looked at me.

“I didn’t even really think of doing anything. I just got frustrated and gave up.” 

“Well, I’ll email you a list of some good ones that’ll help. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll figure something else out.” I touched his knee lightly, and smiled at him. We could figure out a solution for anything, eventually.  
And the shakes he had settled on had helped, even though he complained they tasted weird. He wasn’t quite up the weight he had been before, but almost, and the hollows under his eyes had almost all the way disappeared. The dark circles had lightened too, though I could tell he wasn’t always sleeping very well. But overall, things seemed better. 

We were doing the last of the blood tests to make sure he didn’t have any STI’s, something Will had confessed he was trying not to worry about but kept creeping back up to haunt him with what if’s. I wasn’t too worried though, not with the preventative meds he had taken and the previous negative results. 

“Well, I think that’s all. I’ll call you when I get them, should be….no later than Wednesday. That good?” I asked, taking off my gloves with a snap.

“Yeah, yeah that’s fine. But uh, Leo?” Will stood up, rubbing his palms on his pants nervously. “I just. I wanted to say thank you. For helping me out, especially so much at first. I think I could have done a lot worse at first, honestly. So. Thanks.” He said, and he reached out and hugged me. It was hesitant at first, I had never really hugged Will besides side hugs at things like mine and Grace’s wedding, or a slap on the back, but here Will really hugged me, arms around my shoulders and his chest pressed against mine. He smelled like lavender, like Grace did after spending the night at Will’s, and he pressed his face into the curve of my shoulder. I hugged him back, and he squeezed me tighter for a second before pulling away, smiling. “Thanks.” He said again.

“You’re welcome, Will. Of course. And if you need anything, call. Or text. Or just hint at it around Grace.” I joked, and Will laughed and when he followed me out of the exam room and headed towards the lobby. I watched him go, and went back to work. I had other patients to attend to, and Will wasn’t one now. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be again.


End file.
